Neon Backgrounds for Desktop Publishing Projects

Neon backgrounds use vibrant and bright colors to get peoples attention and bring a lot of light, movement, and depth into designs. Whether it be neon colored backgrounds or designs that mimic the properties of neon lights we have five excellent backgrounds for you to choose from.

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Neon Backgrounds for Desktop Publishing Projects

Neon is interesting because it can mean a lot of things from a design perspective. Neon itself was popularized in physical, light signs that were commercialized in the early 1900's and have only gotten more popular since. Ranging from sports memorabilia or the classic "OPEN" sign, neon lights have opened the door to a lot of design applications.

In the most traditional sense, neon designs feature bright colors (most often red, white, and blue) in a fashion that mimics the light signs that inspired them. There is also lots of room for creative interpretation since digital image editing software like Photoshop allows for a lot of different colors and blends to be creating making more complex and intricate designs easy and less constrained to the rigid glass tube design of neon signs.

Another way of looking at is neon colors which are often very bright primary and secondary colors which are common at raves, night clubs, and UV reactive paints. While this isn't true to the source material it is often widely accepted as a form of neon.

The 5 neon backgrounds -or- neon colored backgrounds provided cover these two interpretations, sometimes intersecting, so I hope you find something that you like and that you can use in your Desktop Publishing project(s) in the future!

(Click images for a larger preview or visit their source for larger resolutions.)

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DNA Your Mine by Me

This is a neon colored background of my own creation that uses soft and no glow neon colors to create a pretty cool double helix with some stylish circles lining the side. I designed it with you, the designer, in mind in order to have adequate amounts of space for your own additions, icons, and what have you without disturbing the main design element. The background will be great in just about every application since it's not incredibly dark and can be customized quite extensively.

Source: Michael Guerrero

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Neon Rose by Solus-Magi

Here is a fun neon background that has the deep neon blue that is closer to a traditional neon sign. The background has a lot of great things going on for it because it features interesting, asymmetrical shapes that are all bright and glow like an actual neon sign might.

Since it is only available in a square resolution this background would not be suited well as a desktop background but more so for a digital card or as an element to forum signatures, banners, and perhaps the center of website's background (assuming the elements of the web page feature some transparency so that the background can be appreciated).

Source: http://fav.me/d17kqew

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Silk Air by zen-nikki

Zen-nikki has created an amazing, but simplistic background that would make a lovely neon background for whatever project you might need it for. The background feature four different colored, glowing tendrils of neon light that dance and weave with each other, creating depth and movement in this design which is incredibly eye-catching. This background is available in a zip file that features 4 different resolutions for your convenience.

Source: http://fav.me/d1fb1kw

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Neon Glow by lucio21

Neon Glow is a bit more serene looking and gives off a very relaxing feel as the colors sort of blend and move in together. This neon background is similar to some of the other backgrounds I've showcased in a couple of other articles in that it is a blurry gradient of several colors that mix and mesh together beautifully, but what makes it neon is the distinct stripe of neon light that skates across the image.

Since this is more of a modern design, akin to some default desktop background options, it would be most suited towards digital applications such as a desktop or web page background.

Source: http://fav.me/d18j7yw

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Neon Stripe by Dedone

I really like this neon background because it features a style that I particularly favor which are the stripes, but also because when you look at the lines of the image the vertical lights sort of give the illusion that they are peaks of a triangular hill and also how the glow seems to extend past the image itself.

I find that optical illusions like this are very eye-catching making this neon background excellent from a design stand-point. As for a stand-point on functionality you will likely not find a better design since this can either be used as is, tiled to create more lines, used on a printed or digital medium and is incredibly simple so no elements will be overshadowed by necessary additions.

Source: http://fav.me/d9hc09

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All images are used for promotional purposes only and are listed in each individual section of the article.

The header image can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NeTube.jpg